Nathalie Woolworth

After graduating from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies in 2018 Nathalie joined the US Forest Service as a National Partnership Coordinator, where she works to build public-private partnerships that bring investment to USFS' work. Nathalie's time at Yale, where she focused on land conservation and how to finance it, set her up well to take on this role.

Prior to Yale, Nathalie spent four years as a management consultant for nonprofit organizations in Boston. In this capacity she developed strategic business plans for nonprofit clients, supported philanthropic grant-making initiatives, and co-authored research reports on the health of the nonprofit sector.

The National Philanthropic Trust’s 2017 Donor-Advised Fund Report found that the capital housed in donor-advised funds across the United States exceeded $85 billion in 2016. This represents an almost 10-percent increase since 2015 and a 28-percent increase since 2012.

LegacyWorks Group was founded to help donors and investors who are interested in achieving community and conservation goals to mobilize their capital in highly collaborative, impactful ways. In this interview, LegacyWorks Group’s founder, Carl Palmer, discusses the mindsets that allow philanthropic giving and impact investing to expand their horizons, accelerate their results, and reach broader goals.

This article by Nathalie Woolworth and Hazel Wong is part of the Conservation Finance Network Toolkit, a resource designed for professionals who want to learn or communicate about the industry. Ballot measures, also known as initiatives or propositions, are instruments of direct democracy that allow voters to directly shape public policy in the voting booth.

The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC) January 2017 report “Beyond the Source: the Environmental, Economic and Community Benefits of Source Water Protection” highlights water funds as a strategy for urban source water protection. 40 percent of source watersheds around the world show high-to-moderate levels of degradation. This can put water and food security at risk and negatively impact economic growth.

Since 2000, residents of San Antonio, Texas have voted four times to approve ballot measures setting aside a portion of local sales-tax revenue for the city’s Edwards Aquifer Protection Program. The Nature Conservancy’s January report “Beyond the Source: The Environmental, Economic and Community Benefits of Source Water Protection” showcases San Antonio’s program as an example of a publicly financed water fund. Water funds are institutional platforms that connect upstream and downstream users through the financing, governance and management of source water protection.

Dramatic increases in investment in conservation over the last decade are the focus of a new report authored by Forest Trends’ Ecosystem Marketplace, “State of Private Investment in Conservation 2016.” The report sheds light on the many dimensions that drove growth between 2004 and 2015.

The most recent A Community on Ecosystem Services (ACES) conference, which sought to advance science, practice, and decision-making around ecosystem services, exhibited a variety of examples of collaboration between science and finance. The conference was held Dec. 5 - 9 in Jacksonville, Florida.